Verismo Revisited

Verismo Revisited "When they asked me if I could come to the Metropolitan Opera at the last moment, I said it was out of the question, of course I couldn't do it, so just forget it. But Franco pleaded, so I said 'Let me look at the scores.' And 1 really fell in love with Cavalleria."

The speaker was Conductor Leonard Bernstein, and Franco is Designer-Director Franco Zeffirelli. The result of their talks created the first great occasion at the Met since it opened its season after a disastrous delay--a brand-new production of Cav and Pag (Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci), opera's beloved twin chestnuts, flossily refurbished. Though Bernstein's demanding schedule only permitted him to conduct Cav (Met Conductor Fausto Cleva did Pag), the night promised to be one to remember. Bernstein and Zeffirelli, after all, in 1964 had helped turn the Met's Falstaff into the recent decade's most breathtaking operatic experience. Alas, this time out the results were more thought provoking than cheer inspiring.

Peculiar Magic. Much of the trouble lay with the operas. Verdi's Falstaff, with its quicksilver score and its well-drawn characters, is a director's and a conductor's dream. Cav and Pag are genre pieces in a style known as verismo (truthful) to distinguish their homely subject matter from the myths and legends fashionable at the time.

When Cav and Pag came out in the 1890s, there was a certain honesty in creating grand opera about common peopie. To go on captivating audiences today, such operas do not need modernizing. They need the courage of their own melodramatic convictions, overwhelming the audience with old-fashioned breast beating, hair pulling and singing that soars and thrills.

In the new Cav, however, Bernstein fell in love with Composer Pietro Mascagni's original score, which calls for much slower tempos than the opera customarily is given. (His performance ran a full ten minutes longer than the normal 70 minutes.) Tension and excitement drained away as Tenor Franco Corelli and Soprano Grace Bumbry (Santuzza) dutifully sacrificed dramatic pacing to accuracy, concentrating on breathing deeply to manage the long phrases.

Rise from the Deadly. Zeffirelli's Sicilian setting was full of church steps and free of novelty. His Pagliacci included a dusty road, a gnarled tree, a brilliant sunset and a great deal of lively Method movement. Here, if the pace was present, the voices were lacking. Dynamic Soprano Teresa Stratas fell sick and had to be replaced at the last minute. Veteran Tenor Richard Tucker had neither the warmth nor the fire to create dislike in the audience and then transform it into pity. Only Baritone Sherrill Milnes as the deformed Tonio had the strong, rich reserves of voice and tone that can raise Pagliacci from the deadly.

"Today, you know," Zeffirelli said, commenting on his straightforward conception of the productions, "it takes more courage to be conservative in a healthy way than to be revolutionary." Very true. But to be healthy, Italian opera needs passion too.

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